I agree.
Every time I see a sign that says "We're cashless!" I read it as "We're racist!"
If the very minimal burden of handling cash is going to ruin your business, you're not a business. You're a hobby.
If you have employees, cash also makes it much (much) easier for theft, fraud, tax evasion, and so on. It's pretty easy for employees to skim cash if it's coming and going.
If the "cash" part of the business is small compared to the rest then it makes (business) sense to simply eliminate that.
I agree with you though that it has an unequal effect on different groups of people. And yes, the un-banked (and that typically means the poorer segment of society) tend to be the most affected.
Cashless advocates are always talking about how "expensive" cash is, but never quantify it. Is handling cash more expensive than credit card fees, for example? If it were, businesses like supermarkets that operate on 1-2% margins wouldn't take cash. But they do. Some near me take cash freely, but charge extra to use debit cards. (For some reason, credit cards incur no fee.)
It's like the banks have used fear to institutionalize extortion.
"Think of all these horrible things that might possibly happen to your business. Damed shame if one of these exceedingly unlikely things was to happen.
Now if you give us 3% off your sales, we can make all that disappear..."
A quick look at any local court docket shows that thieves still get caught, prosecuted, and imprisoned. Real life is very different from sensationalist internet blogspam headlines.
Cash = chamber pot / outhouse Electronic payments = modern plumbing
People shat for millennia without modern plumbing. Installing and maintaining modern plumbing often requires external expertise who will wish to be paid for their services. In developed countries, the modern plumbing also needs to connect to public infrastructure and comply with a variety of regulations.
By choosing modern plumbing over chamber pots, we got rid of some issues pretty much entirely (monetary analogies in parentheses)...
- No one has to empty the shit bucket / shovel dirt in the hole (the business does not need to send an employee to the bank with a money bag)
- No one has to smell the shit of the previous user/customer (no one has to handle physical objects that may have had an interesting and/or disgusting journey prior [0] [1])
- Massive reduction in fecal-borne illnesses (reduced employee theft, fraud potential)
Day to day, I'm sure the outhouse is "cheaper" than toilets. I'll take all the benefits of modern plumbing.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aM_dT5VMI [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency
I'm not saying I agree with or endorse tax evasion—but some are doing it for this very reason, while others simply don't want a 3rd party to their b2c transactions (for whatever reason) and are ready and willing to lose customers who only want to pay in plastic. Some even offer the consolation ATM on-premises.
If you don't like the tax law, work on getting it changed or move your business somewhere where the taxes are more to your liking. Oh, being in NYC gives you access to a massive market you wouldn't have if you were in a lower tax environment? A market that continues to exist thanks to infrastructure funded via tax revenue? Funny how that works...
That was half of it—the other half was some businesses would prefer to not have a credit card processor party to their sale. It could be for a number of reasons that that are perfectly valid and legal.
> If you don't like the tax law, work on getting it changed or move your business
Also, to be clear, I am but a messenger. I don't own a business or take cash or credit card payments. If I did, I reckon I'd report them accurately for fear of getting audited and hauled off to prison—but I do appreciate your enthusiasm.
Much like taxes, it comes down to market access. By accepting credit cards, they get access to a larger market, a larger potential set of customers. The cashless person can patronize their business thanks to the electronic payment infrastructure the banks created and maintain. That infrastructure is paid for by transaction fees.
If a business owner feels that cards are too much of a privacy issue or whatever aside from the fees, that's their opinion and they're welcome to it. They can work to find payment systems and markets that align with their values if it bugs them sufficiently. There is a possibility that the intersection of the sets of "places where the markets align with their values", "places where the business owner wants to operate", and "places where the business can be successful" might be small or nonexistent. You can't always get what you want, as the song says.
Likewise, a business owner who feels taxes are unfair can look for places where the taxes align to their values. There may or may not be places that have an agreeable tax structure and sufficient markets to sustain the business.
I get pretty tired of business owners who act like the government and service providers are unjustly stealing from them when often the business' entire ability to exist and sustain itself depends on the infrastructure and services provided.
You're the messenger, yes, but no one forced you to put your hands on the keyboard. Don't be surprised if you're handed a response for the message you chose to deliver. Feel free to carry it back to the business owners you've chatted with.
Though to your point on handling cash being a cost, surely credit card charges are more than the cost of handling cash?
Banks must offer basic accounts to anybody (at nondiscriminatory pricing) and unless it's used for fraud or if the fee cannot be paid isn't allowed to close it.
That certainly helps.
Everytime you pay anything with something else than cash, it is recorded: the amount, the time, the place, and the nature of the thing you buy.
There is no way to go to a gay bar (or another place loaded with consequences) without a trace. And this is needed for human dignity.
There is way to support a controversial political movement without a trace. And this is necessary for new idea to come up.
There is not way for kids to do dumb things without a trace. And this is necessary for growing.
There is no way to pay for something when electricity or network goes down. And this is necessary to deal with crisis.
Basically, cash buys humanity margin of maneuver, and a fallback against any decaying societal or technical system.
-- "Every exchange will leave a full track - where, when, what" already should raise a "you'd better be joking".
-- Failsafe fallback: a system depending on running infrastructure (electricity, internet, servers etc.) is badly conceived.
I've noticed that the loudest voices in favor of getting rid of cash usually seem to live in places that have few, if any, natural disasters.
Infrastructure does not fail only because of natural disasters.
We should remember that this is also true about phones.
But the rest of your point stands. Cash grants a lot more flexibility.
CC processing today 100% requires power and network.
But even if it did, how would visa process the recipe without power ? Their money is all bits.
Cash is cash, even when there is no accounting.